How to open RAR files on Mac and compress ZIP archives

Olga Weis26 Sept at 15:10

Formats used for creating and maintaining archive files are nowadays plenty. There might be various purposes of archiving data, but the main one is compressing data and combining multiple files into one for quicker transfer. Another thing that matters is safety of archived data. Considering these we would say that RAR is the most preferable archive format. It saves you storage space while protecting your data with the help of complex compression protocols.

Extract RAR files

OS X native archiving utility supports only ZIP formats, and if you wonder how to extract rar files on your Mac, you’ll have to opt for a third party RAR extractor for Mac. The market offers many options and figuring out what app suits you best might not be easy. In this article we’ll tell you about Commander One.

The app is basically a dual-pane file manager for Mac. It features a built-in archiving utility that works not only with RAR files, but other popular archive formats too. The unarchiver is seamlessly integrated in the file manager so your workflow while working with archived data won’t be any different from a normal file browsing. Click any archived folder and its contents will be displayed in the same panel, there is no need to switch between multiple open windows.

The thing we like most about Commander One is its ability to browse the contents of the archived file without extracting it. You can search for and decompress only particular files, not the entire archive. To do it, drag-and-drop them directly from archive to a folder open in the second pane. This is what distinguishes Commander One from standalone archiving utilities.

Compress ZIP archives

Apart from extracting archived data Commander One also allows you to create archives, i.e. it works as an archive compressor for mac. Select a file to be compressed, click the app’s icon in the Quick Launch toolbar and choose a required format and compression level. For ZIP and 7z formats you can setup a password.

Archiving feature is also available in the context menu – select a file and right-click on it to select required options.

Commander One is the answer to “how to extract rar files” and “how to create a zip file on mac” questions.

Being a file manager for Mac the app has a lot more to offer, e.g. built-in FTP, FTPS and SFTP client and Terminal emulator. You can integrate Google Drive, Dropbox and Amazon S3 into the app, mount iOS and MTP devices and access their contents as if they were local disks on your Mac.

Basic functionality of Commander One is free of cost. Advanced functionality is available to you for free for 15 days, to continue using it once the trial period is over, purchase a license. Those who are switching from competing products or own Total Commander for Windows get 50% discount.